Murray read a couple poems at the open mic. The second of which had a pun at the end that I was not swift enough to get before I heard the laughter from around the room.
Grant shared some romantic and comic tanka.
Guy shared memories of being in the military in Germany in the 60s.
The presenter of the dead poet tribute I missed the name of. He introduced us to Lope de Veda who had at least the stature of Shakespeare in Spain. He was prolific enough to make Honore de Balzac look lazy by comparison. He wrote a few novels, a few novellas, 3000 sonnets and 1500 plays. And his children may have numbered somewhere between the number of sonnets and plays. 😉 His image was displayed in a comparable way as rock star posters might adorn dorms today.
In the new tradition of Tree, a local poet is featured and is invited to bring in a poet from out of town. At Tree Feb 8, Rhonda Douglas invited George Murray.
Rhonda Douglas read from her last book Sometimes I think I Know Things and from new work. They seem far more musical and less ideological than her Cassandra poems. One I particularly liked dedicated to her choir master/leader which contained the idea of how to cooperate for music, listening to one another: “there are fortissimo times and voce sotto times — listen for the dynamic.” A prose poem on the idea of editing had the advice “never let the draft drive!”
George Murray read from his Aphorisms book which had its start at Tree. He test drove a few and got such a warm response, pursued the idea of a book of aphorisms as poems. He also test drove his new manuscript (to be released in 2012) which is rhymed balladic and common meter verse, an area he didn’t go to in previous books. He said he was inspired by Simon Armitage’s Travelling Songs.
I’m afraid my mind went left at one point in his poem about Schrödinger’s cat when he exhorted, don’t listen for the mewl. I heard “mule” and visualized the cat in the box, silent, but with a toy plastic mule being batted around. But point taken, yes, why do we pretend that the cat can’t be heard as an indication of it being alive or dead? They aren’t the quietest of beasts.
Both readers were having some parallels in work, beyond both being from Newfoundland, both having a previous book that was something of arm’s length and the upcoming being a more confessional-type book.
Next time, all open mic. Come and vote for best poem. There may be a plebiscite or sorts.